Official Webpage of Horror Author Human Gravy

Book Review for Kristin Wong’s, Get Money: Live the Life You Want, Not Just the Life You Can Afford

Kristin Wong takes the complication out of personal finance and breaks it down into understandable and easily digestible bits. “Get Money” is aimed at a younger audience, most likely between the ages of 18 to 30 years old, but if you aren’t familiar with personal finance concepts, it is a great starting point for anyone wishing to educate themselves.

With money management is often being a struggle, Wong takes topics such as saving for retirement, paying off debts, and budgeting and breaks them down into the essentials and makes them easily understandable form without making the reader feel dumb. She shares many of her own successes and failures and uses these to illustrate the fact that money is a complicated subject, we’re all in different situations, and not everyone is an expert or will make the best decisions.

Most importantly, Wong talks about the balance between all of these subjects. She doesn’t tell you to stop living life. She doesn’t ask you to negate yourself the fruits of your labor completely. She doesn’t say to the reader to stop buying cups of coffee and buy the cheapest toilet paper possible. There is equal parts emphasis on saving for the future, paying off debts, and learning how to improve your situation by earning more money in different ways.

“Get Money” isn’t a groundbreaking book. Much of the same information can be found from other sources. However, Wong’s delivery of the information is what makes this book enjoyable. There is humor, anecdotes, and a sense of empathy which is what makes it unique against all the other personal finance books which attempt to teach lessons through condescension and “tough love.”